


The Dragon Heir

by TheAuthorGod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adviser Naomi, Adviser Sam Winchester, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Comfortably Bisexual Dean Winchester, Dragon Castiel, Dragon Gabriel, Dragon Heir Castiel, Dragon Naomi, Dragons, F/F, F/M, Gen, I'm not tagging all the characters there are too many, King Dean Winchester, Kings & Queens, Knight Charlie Bradbury, Lady Gilda, M/M, Naomi Being a Dick, Nobility, Noble Gilda, Other Canon Characters as Minor Characters, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Soulmates Castiel & Dean Winchester, but like 20k-slow-burn no 140k-slow-burn, mentions of other canon characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-22 06:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10691517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAuthorGod/pseuds/TheAuthorGod
Summary: It is a customary rite that, when the Dragon Heir comes of age, the seven kingdoms present them with a suitable candidate to wed.  These candidates, if worthy, guide their traveling party to the Southernmost entrance to the Great Mountain.  There, the Dragon Heir will choose a bride.As King of Lebanok, the third kingdom, Dean has been assured by his adviser and brother, Sam, that he cannot simply ignore the call of the Dragon Nation; he too must at least attempt to present a candidate.  However, there’s been a slight change of plans… for everyone.UPDATES ON FRIDAYS





	1. Chapter 1: Change of Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambersagen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambersagen/gifts).



> [You can find the rebloggable tumblr post featuring this work here with the artwork at full size and quality](http://feartheophanim.tumblr.com/post/159833983723/a-destiel-au-that-someone-did-in-fact-ask-for)   
> 

Dean and Charlie’s mission had been simple, find a princess for the Come-of-Age Heir of the Dragon Nation. Simple. Open and closed book. Wipe your hands of it and be off.  
  
And it would have been, if they’d made it just 15 more hours.  
  
“Oh, this is bad, Dean. This is bad.” Charlie was pacing in the limited fire light. As she wrung her hands, her armor ground together in ways that made Dean cringe where he sat on the other side of the clearing.  
  
Poking at the fire, Dean sighed. “What is it?”  
  
Charlie wasn’t usually the anxious sort. She was usually the ‘let’s get it done before I start to think about it too much’ type, which meant that she actively made sure that she didn’t get anxious. Dean liked that about her. It reminded him of himself and that was probably why he had become such good friends with her. As the Crown Prince, he hadn’t been given much choice in his life, but, when it came to Charlie, he never budged.  
  
Now, after her training and a few years as his second, she was his best, most loyal knight. Of course, women aren’t ‘supposed’ to be knights, but, once she was in her full suit of armor, no one could tell anyway. So, they broke the rules a little bit. No one batted an eye at their close interaction while suited up. Most of the people who saw their closeness outside of their armor thought she was a mistress or consort. Little did they know.  
  
And less still because Dean didn’t correct them. It kept people off his case about marriage and children and lineage and honor and fuck them.  
  
“I may have fallen in love with her.”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “You fall in love with any pretty woman who’s well-read and carries a dagger. It’s not as if that stops us from delivering her.”  
  
The fire was almost out. The journey was almost over. This ‘freedom’ of the wilderness would soon end and Dean would be stuck, yet again, in the confines of his castle study. He hated that room. To avoid it as much as possible, he’d went so far as to make Sam his head adviser and gift the office to him, but they still managed to put him in there with Sam for hours on end, reading up on law and rites.  
  
It was one particularly long and boring afternoon that had given rise to their current trek. While Dean had dozed to the sound of his brother’s voice, a messenger hawk had arrived from the West. It had a very short message: The Heir is of age.  
  
Luckily, Sam had known what it was about, because Dean would’ve just written it off as a joke from Benny or Garth.  
  
Charlie grabbed Dean’s shoulders, earning her all his attention. “I’ve seduced her.” She plopped down on the ground beside him, making her armor crash against itself in numerous places. “While we were washing today, she said that she returned my feelings and would like to court me. She said that a knight of my stature surely couldn’t upset her family.”  
  
“She knows why we collected her.” Dean pointed his eyes back to dying fire. “She must know the shame her family would face if she were to court and wed a mere knight after journeying to court and wed the Dragon Heir.”  
  
Supposedly, the Dragon Heir was some top shelf shit. From the correspondence that Dean had managed to make with Sam, he had gathered that the Dragon Heir was in much the same boat as himself. He’d been left a kingdom to rule upon his coming-of-age that he knew little about. His aunt, a fireless dragon named Naomi, had been the key adviser for the Dragon Nation for the duration of his childhood and adolescence.  
  
Of course, Sam had already known all of that. He’d read it in the history books. The same ones that Dean refused to touch because they had pictures of his mother that were too saddening for him to see.  
  
Sam loved the book. His version was tattered and fraying from nights that he’d just stare at her picture on page 145 and pretend she was there with him.  
  
Dean had glued the pages in his copy so that the reader skipped from page 44 to 47.  
  
“She likes women, Dean. She said she’d been too afraid to say anything before, that she didn’t know of any other women who liked women before me.”  
  
“Then you know that her fascination with you is fleeting.”  
  
“What is your issue?” Charlie whisper-yelled, trying not to disturb Lady Gilda where she slept.  
  
Dean growled. “My issue is it’s too late for this. We are too far in this journey. We can’t just find another princess. We can’t show up empty-handed. You act like since you love her and she’s whatever-smitten with you that the world will have to bend to your romance.” He throws her bedroll at her. “Keep that sort of thinking in your fiction and your dreams. When you wake up, be done with them. We will be at the head of the mountain range tomorrow.” He unrolled his own bed and turned to sleep facing away from her.  
  
Getting ready for bed, Charlie grumbled to herself. Though he couldn’t hear all of it, Dean was fairly certain she was cursing him with poor slumber.


	2. Chapter 2: Berry Tired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean can barely keep his eyes open, but somehow they still make it to the entrance to the Great Mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [You can find the rebloggable tumblr post featuring this work here with the full artwork at full quality here](http://feartheophanim.tumblr.com/post/159834548573/a-destiel-au-that-someone-did-in-fact-ask-for)   
> 

“I’m going to say we’re lost.” Dean, plagued with nightmares the night before, was almost falling off his horse from fatigue. “How about we look for a place to water our horses?”  
  
Gilda pulled her horse’s reins, coming to an immediate stop. “In that case, lead the way. I’m not sure what your advisor meant when he said that those chosen for the heir would find their way. I’m afraid I’m doing a poor job, Your Highness.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Dean flopped forward on his horse. No matter how many times he told Gilda to drop the titles and pleasantries, she didn’t seem to listen. “Yeah, okay. I’ll take the lead.” He let his horse meander up in front of Charlie’s and Gilda’s.  
  
“Hermes! Will you stop with the wild berries and just listen to me?” Charlie growled.  
  
Charlie’s horse kept losing interest in their trek and trying to munch on various plants that lined the path. She kept having to redirect his nose to the direction they were heading. Served her right though, since she cursed Dean’s sleep.  
  
Dean snickered from his half-passed out state on his horse.  
  
He honestly wasn’t very sure what he was doing. Supposedly, he was looking for a water for their horses, but he wasn’t actively doing much of anything. He was just steering his horse blindly, which wouldn’t actually find water. His eyes were closing on their own and he really didn’t want to be there.  
  
After what Charlie had said the night before, he was a bit worried that meeting the Dragon Heir would go even more terribly than he’d already expected.  
  
Dean knocked his heels back into the horse’s belly again and tried not to fall off as he sped through the forest. The trail was thin, obviously not a well-traveled one.  
  
“Wait up!” Charlie called from behind him, but Dean was exhausted and couldn’t really come up with a reason to slow down.  
  
Filled with adrenaline from their impromptu chase, Dean sat up and took hold of his reins, properly. He laughed and hollered, whipping this way and that down the forking trails. At this rate, they’d have to double back to get water.  
  
He was looking over his shoulder when his horse skidded to a halt and brayed loudly. Dean looked around; the forest had parted to what looked like a manicured lawn. There were definite signs of landscaping and gardening. On the far side from where Dean had burst in, was a small house built against a menacing cliff-face.  
  
Dean hopped of his horse, holding onto the saddle and straps tightly to keep him from falling straight to the ground. He was just that tired. He led the horse to a water trough at the edge of the clearing and looped the reins around of the posts there with practiced ease.  
  
Gilda trotted her horse into the clearing first and Charlie rushed in after her with her bow and arrow drawn.  
  
“Woah, woah! Charlie, put that down. We don’t need to frighten our hosts.” Dean put his hands up in the same sort of movement he might use to calm a horse.  
  
Charlie made a point of using a very loud whisper to respond. “We don’t even know these people. We can’t just water our horses with their water. Where do they even get their water?”  
  
Honestly, Dean couldn’t bring his brain to try to figure it out. He stepped toward the little cottage erected against the mountain side. “I’m charming and I’m the king; I’m sure everything will be fine. We are hardly a bother.”  
  
Gilda had tied her horse off and joined Dean at his side. “No offense, my king, but you don’t look very kingly.”  
  
“Well, not all of us slept as soundly as you did, Lady Gilda.” He put extra emphasis on her title, because she needed to stop using his already; it made every interaction so much more annoying than it needed to be. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to notice.  
  
Dean glanced around. It was a lovely spot. There were flowers in window-planters and stepping stones leading to the door. It reminded him a little of the summer home his family had in the country. There had been a little pond where he could catch frogs to show Sam who could barely toddle around at the time.  
  
He didn’t remember much, just being whisked away to the summer house with one of their maids, Missouri, and spending most of the time eating fresh-baked pies and scaring the secondary staff by putting frog everywhere, mostly their shoes.  
  
This house didn’t smell like pie, but if their host was gracious enough; Dean would gladly bake one to thank them for letting them water their horses and sit on padded chairs. Yes, Dean’s butt was sore after days on horseback.  
  
“Fine. Eat the damn berries. When you’re done, drink the damn water.” Charlie splashed some of the water at Hermes in frustration, before joining the rest of them. She still had her bow out.  
  
Dean sighed.  
  
He was about to take the remaining two steps and knock on the door, but instead the door opened outward one its own. Well, thankfully not entirely on its own; someone was behind it.  
  
It turned out to be a young man, who couldn’t be much younger than Dean. He had dark brown hair and he was heavily adorned with gold plates and other jewelry.  
  
The first damning thought that Dean had was that he was absolutely breath-taking.  
  
Having stolen Dean’s breath, he put it to use. He looked between the three of them before letting out a breathy, “Oh.”


	3. Chapter 3: Cozy Cottage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel ushers the travelers in. He definitely isn't expecting them, but he is an accommodating host.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [You can find the rebloggable tumblr post featuring this work here with the full artwork at full quality here](http://feartheophanim.tumblr.com)

So, this was the Dragon Heir?  
  
Dean was utterly confused. “I thought we were supposed to meet you at the mountain.”  
  
“You have.” Castiel, his name was Castiel; it was an old Dragon name that had to mean something incredible because Castiel was just that, incredible. He gestured to the house. “Though, I will admit; this is the East entrance and I rarely have guests through this way.”  
  
Ducking his head, Dean rubbed at his neck suddenly sheepish. “Sorry for the intrusion, then.”  
  
Behind him, Charlie stepped forward and lit over Dean’s shoulder. She whispered harshly, “What happened to ‘We’re hardly a bother’?”  
  
“Shush.” Dean had to make a good first impression. If Dean was to ensure his kingdom’s safety and maintain diplomatic relations, he’d have to use all of his charm. That was the only reason he was trying to be as charming as possible. At least, that’s what he told himself.  
  
Gilda giggled at the exchange and Dean was struck with how impolite he was being. And to the Dragon Heir, of all people.  
  
Dean bowed, deeply. “I am King Dean Winchester from Lebanok.” He stood and waved a hand toward his companions, starting with Charlie. “This is the Head of my Royal Guard, Sir Charlie Bradbury, and this young woman is Lady Gilda Fair from the Royal House of Larp.”  
  
Reaching forward and manhandling Dean up to his straight-standing posture, Castiel shook his head. “Please, no formalities. It’s bothersome.”  
  
The Dragon Heir was strong. He was a dragon, so of course he was strong, but Dean was honestly impressed. He rubbed a little at the spot on his upper arm where the Dragon Heir had held him.  
  
“Ah, just as his highness,” Gilda smiled warmly.  
  
If she knew he didn’t like it, why did she insist on disobeying his wishes? Had Charlie set her up to it? Anyway. Dean tried not to let his frustration with Gilda cloud his demeanor.  
  
Castiel waved them into the cottage through the door. Gilda followed first, Dean and Charlie trailing in behind her.  
  
Once inside, Castiel kicked a wooden bucket full of gardening tools out from the middle of the walkway. “Sorry, about that; I had expected you to meet my Aunt Naomi at the Southern entrance. She was to introduce you and handle all of the formalities. I wasn’t going to meet anyone until dinner tonight; I had some time to kill.” He looked forlornly at the discarded gardening tools. “Aunt Naomi has the travel gifts and contractual paperwork to mark a formal arrival.” He motioned for them to continue, before reaching down to lift the bucket.  
  
Smoothly as he could from the other side of the room, Dean swept in and picked up the bucket himself. “Please, Castiel, lead the way.” He grinned at the Dragon Heir and fell back into place behind Gilda and Charlie. He kept tasting Castiel’s name in his mouth. It felt nice to say it; it had a ring to it. Maybe it was the magic that came with most of the ancient words used by the Dragons.  
  
The inside of the cottage seemed to have come from a storybook that Dean kept on a little shelf in his room back at the castle. It was cozy and warm and colorful with many different textures and textiles. Hefting the barrel-like bucket with one arm, he reached out and ran a hand along the back of a settee.  
  
It smelled like spices from far away. Dean had always been a bit more frivolous of a leader than his predecessors, or so his second adviser Bobby Singer kept reminding him. He had once hosted a dance troop from the Asian Subcontinent.  
  
At the back of the cottage, Castiel opened a door that could have simply been a closet. Of course, it wasn’t. It would seem that the colorful yet modest cottage acted as an end-cap to a cave entrance leading into The Great Mountain.  
  
Dean had to strain his mind a bit, but he could recall that all Dragons live in caves. Every Dragon has a home mountain where they live until they come of age. Then, they can go and explore the world, or, in the case of the Dragon Heir specifically, they are married off and assume the responsibilities attached to the title.  
  
Thinking about Dragons, Dean was pretty sure that the Indian dance troop’s arrival dinner was the first time he had ever met a Dragon. Despite that dragons tended to serve as guards for the rich and powerful, Dean had managed to convince his council of advisers that he hadn’t needed one. He’d taught himself and his Royal Guard until they were top-notch fighters and strategists. Dean had two copies of the Art of War at the castle, one in the study and a personal copy in his room.  
  
The Dragon with the dance troop was mischievous and seemed to have a one-sided infatuation with one of the dancers. From what Dean gathered from his talks with Kali, he was a Noble Dragon but his immaturity and demeanor didn’t match his birth.  
  
Smiling to himself, Dean wondered what they were up to now.  
  
The cave came to a stop at a large regal-looking door. It must have been at least twice Dean’s height. Castiel turned back to them. In the light of the tiny torches that kept the cave lit, his skin seemed to glow the same golden that his jewelry did. “Welcome to the Atrium.” He pulled on the golden handle of the door.  
  
Dean had to squint. Everything in the room beyond was encrusted with jewels and plated with gold. Honestly, Dean though the atrium at his own castle was gaudy, but it didn’t even hold a candle to this. It made him feel small, as if he wasn’t a king but a lowly servant who didn’t know what wealth could be.

**Author's Note:**

> I take fanfiction commissions! [See the rules and pricing here.](http://feartheophanim.tumblr.com/commissions)
> 
> my tumblr: [feartheophanim.tumblr.com](http://feartheophanim.tumblr.com/)
> 
> commissioner's tumblr: [ambersagen.tumblr.com](http://ambersagen.tumblr.com/)


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